i just can't help myself

he has a dream

Tony has many dreams in fact.
One is to dump the rat race and live on the high seas.
He is ever-so-practical which is why we continue to landscape the backyard instead of liquefying everything to invest in scuba gear and take sail-mending classes. Through his fervored grin he describes the details of this sailboat or that sailboat. He tells me of a simple life that circles the globe, going port to port for odds and ends, immersing in coastal culture of many countries. A blissful existence of fish, fruit, sun and sails.  There is the now version where the kids are schooled with the fishes and there is the retirement version where our daily life is sailing into our silver years, and our vacations are with the kids. He tells me all about the master suite and the kids’ rooms.

Seriously, the latest dream boat has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  We'd keep it green, only using gas in emergencies. He would find a way for my little kitty to come along. Dude has even figured out how to barbeque from the railing! Every angle examined, every pitfall bridged, every need fulfilled.

...except for the debilitating motion sickness of his first mate.

He shares this all not to persuade, not to entice, not to lure. As he sat there on the weight bench in the closet you could see him living it all up in his mind. Caught up in the excitement he says that the cockpit has two seats so we could be side by side piloting the boat with nothing but the ocean out in front of us. What he doesn't know is that it is this that eradicates my green-face, flip-flopping-belly, queasy trepidation.

...because then I can see it.
I can see us, side by side.

the story of the family that always was...

is not my story to tell.  What I will tell you is that it is the story of Sara and Trevor and their family that always was, but just wasn't always like this.  Over the past few years of witnessing these two trying to have a family I said to Sara that she will have the family that she was meant to have exactly when she was meant to have it.  I didn't know that all she had to do was ask.  Their son was waiting already.  Nico is now tucked neatly, perfectly, naturally in his little place in their family and just as naturally into all of our hearts. 

Look at her face.  Have you ever seen a mother that full of sheer joy?  Maybe you have.  Maybe you have felt that too.  But it looks perfect, right?  Just 10 days after their baby is born, after all they went through, the years of trials and different paths that lead up to this, the paperwork that took on a life of it's own, being captive in a city far away from home without answers (but with the weight of Nico keeping her anchored and willing them to push forward) she arrives home with this look of elation.  I can't picture it any other way.

And she says now it all makes sense.  

not just any ol Sunday...

the order for this Sunday was

good food, good conversation and a great trip to wish Grandpa John a happy 60th birthday.

the old and the beautiful

I spent some time with an old friend and her beautiful family.  Oh Farfella! She lives a long way away and we have had our moments of distance, but what can you say about your very first best friend?  She still knows how to make me laugh.  She is still as beautiful as ever.  She has proclaimed to have a terrible memory, but somehow she still remembers the funniest times. 

There were many. 

Too many to list. 

We were a good match, she and I.  I was the straightman to her funny man.  If I wasn't the instigator, she was.  We valued our independence and inner strength.  We valued having a good time and pushing the limits.  I remember getting into trouble a few times. 
Ok, there were many.
Too many to list.

We were young and more than a little foolish.  I learned a great deal about who I was to become during those funny and troubled times.  I will always be thankful to Mardell for that. 

From our brief afternoon I learned we are wiser now, but not so very different.  I also learned she makes some pretty adorable kids!

i remember the day

you said that you wanted me to be the mother of your children.  i have never in my life felt more loved. 
for some reason i will never understand, i was given you. you my perfect balance. you to love. you as a partner. and you as a father for Aidan and Nadia. they are growing up to believe that they deserve love.  they deserve to be appreciated and accepted for who they are.  they get that from being loved, appreciated and accepted by you.  they are growing up to value hard work, a lesson you teach them every time you let them help, even though it takes twice as long.  they know you are always in their corner.  they know that you will always expect the very best from them.  and they know that you will always be there when its time to play. 

oh, and you like to put funny hats on the dog.  i don't know how that makes you the greatest dad ever, but it makes you the perfect dad for our family.

cupcakes

personal-sized portions of happiness.

I made 180 or so of these little celebratory perfections for my students to end the year. 

Let the summer begin!

1.5

one and a half more days of the 2009-2010 school year.

just 230 more minutes with my students.

just 140 cupcakes to bake to send those little buggers off to the next year.
just seven more class periods with students.

just one more field day for my darlings.

just one more afternoon of tony volunteering.

just one more staff lunch.

just one more set of finals.

...until so many hours of...

my baby is seven

Oh Nadia. Our sweet, sweet Noni-b. 

Seven! I can not believe how much you have changed this past year.  My mini-me is gone.  You have become your own little person, you are taller, you are sillier, you are louder, you are even more beautiful.  But through all of this change you still are sure to tell us, ever so often, how you value your family more than anything else.  You have told us all about your plans to live next door and build a tunnel between our homes so we can always be in contact.  I love that about you, you plan ahead.  You have even gone as far as drawing our homes and we have talked about how your talents, your love of math, attention to detail, and super art skills, would lend themselves to architecture some day.  But there we go, trying to plan for you when we all know that you will do exactly what you want to do, another great quality we see emerging.

This was a year of perserverance for you. When something became difficult you would strand tall and go at it again. From these challenges you have gained so much more than the goals you were trying to achieve.  You gained a sense of determination.  Something that took me many, many more years to learn.  You, at just seven!

We love you Nonikins. 

Happy

Happy

Happy Birthday my love.

eyebrows

Eyebrows are a funny little fuzzy thing, don't you think?  Mine have been at the forefront of my morning critique since I was 15 and my friend Mardell gave me a makeover, forever ridding me of bangs and taming my ferocious brows. 
My eyebrows needed that makeover. 
They were big.
They were bushy.
They ran the risk of merging with my eyelashes.

But then...
They were sculpted.
They were sassy.
They were pleasently plucked.

While I was in college in Pullman, a boy told me he recognized me from my stint in Walla Walla.  And by stint, I don't mean that I was doing time. I mean while I was at Walla Walla Community College.  He remembered my eyebrows. Specifically he remembered seeing my eyebrows arched over the steering wheel of my sisters Dukes of Hazard styled orange '77 Nova as I would pull out of the parking lot each day as he pulled in.  Needless to say, my conversation with the boy who had two first names and two last names that all mishmashed together was an awkward conversation at best.

As I flip through pictures of my children their brows jump out at me.  Freakish little arcs that draw my attention.   I started comparing theirs to their friends, to their cousins, to mine and their dad's.  Weird.  Aidan's are luciously thick, but not heavily arched, taking after me.  He even has a cute little mole like a little accent mark when he raises them in emphasis. I think my Noni-love was blessed with her fathers dramatic arch.  Maybe that is why she can give the 'tude like no other? I would love to pluck away at those suckers!  As a family, we have brows that are a furry force to be reckoned with.  I wonder odd things like will people use our face-frons as descriptors?  You know that Bachart family?  The ones with the dark, thick eyebrows that seem to walk into the room before they do?  Oh yeah, that family...I know them. 

Or maybe not.  They may be too distracted by the YAK we keep in the backyard to even remember our beautifully bountiful brows.  That is if I was crazy and fell for Tony's shrewed negotiating.  He offered a deal that would allow me to keep the lovely kitty if he could have a yak.  He was banking on me being of sound mind, little does he know that kitty cuteness brings me very close to crazy town.  Lucky for him, Margo broke out of her kennel because of a nasty case of turkey trots (or in her case, pig ear pig out poopies) and brought me right back to sanity.  Sanity where people are not out-numbered by pets, not actual sanity.  Bachart's are too far gone for that. 

when will i ever get over...

feeling overjoyed when someone waves me through an intersection that I have been stuck at? it is like i won a little lottery and my heart swells a little for mankind. seriously, it makes my day ever single time.


gritting my teeth and wanting to scream when i hear what is happening inside someone’s mouth? the slobbery-sucking-smacking sounds that go with eating gag me with a spoon. i can only begin to describe the torture it is for me when margo goes to town on a pig's ear before i gnash my teeth so hard i am afraid i may damage something.

the instantaneous love i feel when tony slips his hand into mine? i feel like i am melting. melting like decadent chocolate lava cake, all warm and comfy and deliciously fulfilling.

feeling like i am going to jump out of my skin at the sight of a black widow? it has been decades since that one crawled out of the vacuum cleaner tube and up my bare belly. my wonder woman underoos didn't protect me from that thing, but my dad, armed with my favorite mickey mouse blanket perfect for capture and squishing, did. you would think i would act like a grown up now that i have my own children to protect from vile creatures.

saying yes to so many obligations? i just want to relax and enjoy what is in front of me instead of running around like a lunatic. simplify.

loving the squeals of high-schoolers when they see something for the first time, like the tinsiest organisms found in pond scum?

kicking myself when i say something that can be misconstrued so dang easily? like when i spot a hydra on a microscope slide and say a little too enthusiastically, to a group of pubescent boys mind you, wow, you have a big one! followed quickly and directly by a stern "shut up, shut up, shut up" in time for them to only exchange looks and not words. real mature mel, real mature.

the irresistible qualities of a kitten-face? really any kitten face will do, but this one is particularly lovable what with the purring and meowing and black nose and clumsiness.  he will love his new home and i hope his new family loves him as much as i already do.

thinking i married the most capable person on the planet? never probably, since he now has his PE to support my theory, on top of being able to fix practically anything. anything but the broken bones he seems to incur from climbing the stairs. i love that guy fiercely.